


"Yessir."

by HSavinien



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Gen, Original Character(s), Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-11
Updated: 2008-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mister Vimes deals with a...helpful Lance-Constable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Yessir."

“So, you arrested him for  _what_?”

“Being a Suspicious Person, sir.”

“Yes, and...?  That’s not quite enough to justify bringing someone in.”

“Yessir.  I know, sir.  So I also charged him with Using Language Likely to Cause a Breach of the Peace, Malicious Lingering, Loitering Without a Tent, Suspicion of Carrying Concealed Weapons (‘cause there’s only one Nobby Nobbs, sir, and he was a bit lumpier under his coat than usual), Obstructing an Officer of the Watch in the Pursuance of Her Duty, Being a Right Annoying Ba- Bother, and Being Offensive to an Officer of the Watch, sir.”  The Watch officer in question, Lance-Constable Merryweather, fiddled with her helmet.  She was staring straight ahead at the wall behind Vimes’s left shoulder, face set in the stolid ‘reporting to officers’ mode of any police officer anywhere who has given their superior a headache.

Vimes sighed.  “He had an entourage, Lance-Constable.”

“Yessir.  They’re in the stableyard, sir.”

“What are they doing there?”

“Having tea and biscuits, I think, sir.  The lads brought them some out.”

“Do you want to explain some of those charges a bit more, Lance-Constable.”  A sentence like that ought to have had a question mark at the end of it, but he had been around Lord Vetinari too long.  What used to be questions were now statements informing you of what you were going to be saying next.  “The charge of...”  He looked down at the bit of paper. “...Being Offensive to an Officer of the Watch, for example.”

“Yessir.  He said something bad to my partner, sir, after being asked to state his business.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t like to say, sir.”

Vimes rubbed an ink-stained hand across his eyes.  It had been a long day, full of paperwork that he’d actually had to do himself—the latest pay chitty had been bollocksed up somewhere along the way and the clerk Vetinari had assigned to the Watch was currently back at the palace, explaining some ‘inconsistencies’ in his own paperwork.(i)  “Lance-Constable, spit it out.”

“The prisoner called my partner a...er...camel’s fart bastard, sand scum and a sheep buggerer, and told him he ought to use his turban to castrate himself, after which he could make a living as a...um...member of the Seamstresses Guild’s Men’s Auxiliary.”

Vimes nodded.  “Ah.  I take it that that was when you informed him he was under arrest.”

“Yessir.”

“And the charges sort of...accumulated from there.”

“Yessir.”

“Right.”  Vimes scratched his chin, trying to hide his desire to smile nastily.  “I’ll inform Lord Vetinari and he’ll take care of the matter.”

“Yessir.”

“And Merryweather?”  The Lance-Constable paused, mid-salute.

“Yessir?”

“Don’t worry.  You can tell Hakim and the rest of the lads that the young Lord Rust will get what’s coming to him.”

The Lance-Constable grinned, her pointy face rounding out cheerily.  “Yessir. I’ll do that.”  She finished her salute and trotted out the door.

***

i Vimes was fairly certain that the clerk was not getting asked questions by nice people with cakes, but rather by unpleasant, inquisitive, hard-faced people with sharp noses and ledger books.  Possibly, if the clerk had been  _very_ inconsistent, there would later be more people with different sharp things.

**Author's Note:**

> Written before the publication of "Snuff". The "young Lord Rust" is, thus, an invention of mine. I'm only guessing that Lord Rust had offspring, but if he did, they'd probably be like this one. Lance-Constables Constance Merryweather and her partner Kadar ibn Hakim (who is half Klatchian, but Morpork-born) are my original characters. You never know, they might show up again some day.


End file.
